


until the sun makes the hills its grave.

by marquis



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, Past Annabeth/Percy, past jason/piper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 14:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3293600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marquis/pseuds/marquis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the battle with Gaia, Piper had hoped that she might get a break from all of this heroic saving-the-world stuff, but all she's gotten is a breakup and a whole new list of responsibilities.</p><p>(Piper, Annabeth, and Leo are given a new quest that involves a lot of gods and goddesses they've never heard of. They don't have a lot of time, and everything is going wrong. A fic for Femslash February!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	until the sun makes the hills its grave.

“Hey, princess. Up.”

Where there was previously nothing but blissful dark, there is now bright sunlight. Piper scrunches her eyes tightly to keep it away, pulling her comforter up to her chin. “M’sleeping,” she mutters, “go away.”

But Annabeth is having absolutely none of that. She tugs the blanket away from Piper, throwing it on the ground. Piper cries out in alarm, reaching to adjust her pajamas; she’d gone to bed in one of Jason’s old t-shirts, left over from when he used to spend the night here.

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “Oh, don’t be modest. I’ve seen worse.” She’s digging through Piper’s suitcase, making a mess of everything. “They want us up at the Big House in ten minutes. Go brush your teeth.”

It takes a while for Piper to find her toothbrush, digging through the pile of papers and knick-knacks on her bedside table until her fingers find the handle. She makes her way to the bathroom quietly, trying not to wake the rest of the campers; Annabeth may not care about their beauty sleep, but Piper has to live with these kids and she doesn’t want to step on any toes.

At first she’d thought that she’d overslept, that this was one of the routine meetings for cabin heads and she’d just forgotten to set an alarm. But that isn’t right; it’s too early for breakfast, even, and it’s hard enough to get anyone to behave even on a full stomach. A glance out the window tells Piper it’s just after sunrise, the sky painted pink and orange.

The only cabin that will be awake right now is Apollo’s, and that’s almost entirely because he refuses to let his kids sleep through his big reveal.

By the time she’s finished in the bathroom, face washed and hair braided, Annabeth has made her bed. There’s a pair of blue jeans and a white v-neck folded at the foot of her bed, and Annabeth is tapping her foot impatiently in the doorway.

“Come  on ,” she hisses. Piper doesn’t want to argue, so she dresses quickly and follows Annabeth out the door.

Something is wrong. She notices it almost immediately. It’s too quiet for a regular day; there are no campers milling about, no one waiting around aimlessly for breakfast to be served. She looks over to the Apollo cabin and finds the curtains drawn. There are no lights on inside.

Annabeth catches her looking. “I know,” she says. The worry on her face mirrors how Piper feels. “Something is wrong.”

When they get to the Big House, Rachel Dare is waiting for them on the front steps. Leo and Calypso are on either side of her. Normally, Leo is almost unbelievably lively, especially considering he literally came back from the dead not two months ago. Today, though, he stands just as still as the two girls. It’s unnerving.

“What’s going on?” Piper asks, as soon as they’re close enough.

Calypso looks to Rachel, then back to Piper. Her brown eyes are angry, brow furrowed. “This one thinks she can see the future,” she states, tone biting, “and she says you three have to leave.”

Rachel ignores her, mostly, although Piper can tell she would like to make some kind of smart retort. “The twins are in trouble,” she says. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I saw something last night.”

“Apollo and Artemis?” Annabeth asks, coming to a stop in front of Rachel. Rumor has it that they didn’t used to get along, something having to do with Percy; it’s hard to believe now. They seem to have reached an understanding, at least.

It would be nice to sit down, Piper thinks. Her stomach is rumbling, completely empty. She could use some food before going off to save the world again.

“ When the moon rises, love will fall ,” Rachel recites. There are words scribbled in black pen on the back of her hand. “ Wisdom and fire will bring Justice for all .”

Leo runs a hand through his curls. “There was more, but I couldn’t remember it,” he mutters sheepishly. “Didn’t realize it was going to be an actual prophecy for a quest until the last couple of lines.”

That doesn’t seem to bother Annabeth. “Did you see anything, Rachel? Any other clues?”

Rachel shrugs. “When I came back around, all I could remember was a couple of constellations. Libra and Virgo. Does that mean anything to you?” She sounds hopeful, as if Annabeth might be able to solve all of this. Piper almost believes that maybe she could.

But it’s not going to work out that way, apparently. Annabeth shakes her head. “I assume that, based on who you’ve selected for this quest, you already know what most of it means.”

“Fire, wisdom, and love,” Rachel ticks the three items off on her fingers. “It sounds simple enough to me. The rest will be up to you, I guess.”

Calypso lets out a long sigh; Piper turns to look at her. “I think I might be able to help with some of this. Assuming, of course, that the prophecy is even real. If Apollo is in trouble, I don’t think oracles are the best people to look to for instructions.”

She had a point, but Rachel had yet to lead them down the wrong path. No matter what was happening on Olympus, her prophecies were enough to point them in the right direction. She wanted to say as much, but Leo beat her to it.

“We’ve dealt with this sort of thing before. Rachel knows what she’s talking about.” He looks Calypso straight in the eyes when he says it. Piper still hasn’t gotten used to that; Leo would never have been the one she associated with relationships, but he’s somehow the only one from the Prophecy of Seven still going strong.

Rachel latches onto something else entirely. “You know something about this prophecy, Calypso?” she asks, looking startled. As if the idea that a goddess may know something she can’t decipher is astonishing. “What can you tell us?”

“Virgo. Libra. Justice.” Calypso says each word slowly, enunciating every syllable. She expects them to pick up on whatever clues she’s seeing; when they don’t, she groans in frustration. “How is it that none of you are seeing this?”

She marches away from them. At first Piper thinks that this is it, they aren’t going to get anything more from her, but she halts a little ways away and kneels down in the grass. They all watch silently as she brandishes a stick before making her way back to where they’re standing.

“Here’s what I know,” she states. She draws a wavy line in the sand and begins to surround it with dots; Piper vaguely remembers seeing something like it in middle school, something about the sun and its movement around the Earth. Calypso circles two places on the line. “Here is Virgo,” she says, “and here is Libra.”

They don’t really look like much, but Piper doesn’t say that. They don’t have time to argue over artistic license.

“These two constellations are in the sky around the same time. Libra sets in July, and Virgo sets shortly after. I assume that this prophecy is referring to the fact that, as it is currently July thirteenth, we have perhaps a week before Libra has entirely left the visible area of our sky for the year.”

She swipes her foot over the sketch, clearing it away and tugging up what remains of the trampled grass. The stick goes back to work immediately, drawing out more shapes and lines in the sand.

Calypso continues talking, hardly even pausing for breath. “Libra represents the scales, yes? Symbols for fair judgment. Normally associated with Astraea, the goddess of justice. She was frequently responsible for lightning bolts for Zeus. Also, incidentally, the inspiration for the constellation Virgo. Incredibly haughty and a bit overrated if you ask me, but I guess no one ever did. She got all uppity and self-righteous and decided she didn’t want to live with people who didn’t respect her voice. Disappeared. Even the Olympians haven’t managed to find her.”

“Wisdom and fire will bring justice for all,” Annabeth mutters, staring at the drawings. Now that she knows what to look for, Piper can see them as scales, and maybe even a girl; she just has to squint and tilt her head. A lot. “Astraea abandoned Earth, though, thousands of years ago. That was what ended the Golden Age for the Olympians. How are we supposed to bring her back?”

Leo claps his hands together, startling all of them. “Easy! Find the scales and talk to ol’ Zeus about getting us a lightning bolt.”

“And the torch,” Calypso interrupts him. “Lighting the way to truth and all that. You definitely need the torch to get her back here.”

It all sounds pretty simple. They’ve done a lot worse than scavenger hunts. But that one line…  when the moon rises, love will fall. There’s more to this prophecy, and Piper knows it doesn’t bode well for her. Besides all of that, they have no idea where to start.

“So how do we find this torch, then?” she asks. “Or the scales? The lightning bolt is easy enough, but there aren’t exactly maps leading us to other Magical Questly Items.”

Calypso swipes her foot over the ground again, erasing everything. “Beats me. I’d suggest you talk to a god who didn’t spend thousands of years in exile.”

They all look to one another uncertainly.

“Courthouses?” Rachel suggests. “Or maybe only one of them.”

\--

It’s still odd to see Jason wearing glasses. No matter how often she sees him in them, Piper still feels a little confused at a first glance. He hardly looks like the Jason she remembers; then again, the Jason she remembers isn’t really Jason. Hera made sure of that.

“What are we looking for?” he asks, laptop sitting on his legs. “Oldest courthouse? Most prominent? Haunted house filled with men in white wigs?”

Annabeth hums thoughtfully at his elbow, light from the computer screen turning her skin blue. “Let’s try the oldest. That’s probably our best bet, right?”

“First place they ever built in the name of justice, first place to go looking,” Leo quips. He’s fiddling with some wire on the floor next to Jason’s desk, hardly paying attention. “Where do you think the torch is going to be, Pipes?”

The worst thing about this quest is how clueless it’s making Piper feel. She has no idea where to look for the torch, no clue where the scales could be, had never even  heard of this goddess before now, and on top of all that, she’s apparently going to “fall” somehow.

She’s beginning to wonder if it is really necessary that she go. Surely they could find someone else? They’d just won a huge battle against Gaia last summer. At this point, they all deserve a long break from heroics.

That’s the sort of thing she never bothers saying out loud. She doesn’t mean it, not really; she’s just tired. She knows that she has to go, and she could almost believe that she wants to. Saving the world has to be a reward in and of itself, right?

“I don’t know,” Piper answers finally, tugging her braid over her shoulder and straightening out the feathers. “Could be anywhere.”

“Stop thinking about it.”

It takes a moment for Piper to realize that Annabeth is talking to her, grey eyes finally aimed somewhere other than the laptop screen.

“What?” she questions, confused.

Annabeth sighs, moving over to where Piper is seated on the bed and kneeling down beside her. “ When the moon rises, love will fall. Stop thinking about it.” Annabeth’s eyes are soft, despite the apathy in her words. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned about prophecies, it’s that they don’t usually work out the way we assume they will. So stop thinking about it, and focus on something that can actually help us.”

Jason isn’t typing anymore. “Did you just say something about the moon?” he interrupts.

Leo sits up a little straighter, dropping the wire onto the floor. “Why? You know something, airhead?”

He gets a kick for that, and it’s probably deserved. Piper would laugh, but she’s curious. Jason has set his laptop back on his desk and is rifling through a drawer. He has something; somehow, Jason still manages to have all the answers.

With a shout, he pulls out a piece of thick stationary. It’s covered in scratchy handwriting, messy black ink spread out like slashes from a knife. “Last I heard, Thalia and the girls were up in Maine somewhere. A couple hunters were going after one of Lady Artemis’ deer, and she didn’t like it much.”

Piper doesn’t like it much either; she’s seen those deer. They’re beautiful, all silvery fur and huge blue eyes. How anyone could kill anything so beautiful was beyond her. “What does that have to do with the quest?” she asks.

Jason shakes his head, staring down at the paper. “No idea. Thalia just wanted to tell me that Artemis hadn’t really been herself lately. Less talkative, prone to rash decisions. No one remembered there being a deer up in that area, either. She thought that Artemis might have been hiding something from them. Looking for something else, maybe.”

“Like the torch,” Annabeth offers.

“Like the torch.” It’s the closest thing they have to a lead, and that isn’t saying much. Jason puts the paper away and turns back to his laptop. “The courthouse you’re looking for is in Virginia, by the way. King William County. It was the first one ever built in the United States.”

Leo recites it all back, “Virginia, Maine, and Manhattan.” He pushes himself up off the ground. “Might as well be on our way, then; Festus can get us around, but we’re still going to need all the time we can get.”

Piper thinks of the backpack shoved under her bed. She hasn’t really touched it all summer, not even to take out Katoptris. There’s been no need, with all the weapons and new tools in the training bunker. It should still have most of the things from her trip on the Argo II.

“Great,” she says, standing up and brushing off her jeans. “Airborne in twenty?”

They all start to make their way out of the cabin, but then there’s a hand around Piper’s wrist, holding her back. “Hey, Pipes, can you stick around for a minute?”

Leo hardly notices, rushing out the door. Annabeth hears it, though, and she looks back at them. Piper sees something on her face – disappointment maybe, although it could just be boring old confusion – but it’s gone before she can fully decipher it, a flash of blonde curls and a door slamming shut.

She turns to face Jason, deciding it’s probably best not to dwell on something so vague. “Yeah,” Piper replies easily, “what’s up?”

Jason is staring at the ground, free hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “Well. I know this isn’t the best time, what with you about to go off and save the world again, but. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” she says. It almost comes out sounding more like a question. “Why? Is something up?”

“No, nothing’s – I just. Wanted to make sure.” He still won’t meet her eyes, skin tinted a little pink. “That you – that we were still cool.”

“Jason, we broke up four months ago,” Piper reminds him gently. It hadn’t been too rough on either of them; what they remembered wasn’t real, and it was hard to create a future when they couldn’t rely on the past to stand still. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Of course, just because it hadn’t been rough didn’t make it easy. Piper will admit that she’s snuck back into his cabin more times than is probably healthy. Her bed may only be a twin, but sometimes it feels too big without another person in it. She knows he feels the same way. Being together may not be what’s best for them, but neither of them has ever been ideally suited for being alone.

“I just wanted to make sure.”

And then it clicks. The stuttering, the awkward uncertainty that she hasn’t seen in him since Greece. Jason grew a lot over the course of their quest, but some things don’t change that easily.

She watches him for the initial reaction. “You found somebody else?”

He freezes up, hand dropping from her wrist. “I – um. I just. Piper, no.” But the game is up and they both know it. If Piper had more time, she’d weasel a name out of him, but she doesn’t.

“This is the best news I’ve heard all day,” she tells him, completely honest. He looks shocked by that, blue eyes widening. “We  will talk about this when I come back, make no mistake.”

He lets out a breathless laugh, obviously relieved. “Be safe, Pipes.”

\--

They’ve been outside of the camp border for less than ten minutes when the first harpy flies at them. Festus takes her down easily enough, spouting fire until all that’s left is the dust being carried by the wind, but it sets them all on edge.

“And here I was thinking I would finally get a relaxing summer at camp,” Annabeth mutters through gritted teeth. “Leo, how many birds can Festus take at one time?”

Leo already has his tool belt open, rifling through for different odds and ends. Piper thinks she sees a vial of Greek fire; she hopes that she’s wrong. “He can take as many as he needs to. I’ll handle the ones he doesn’t see coming.”

Festus is much larger now, probably a side effect of having been made out of a ship, but Piper doesn’t think she would be able to stand up and fight on his back. That was one advantage of the Argo II: plenty of space to fight off the bad guys. She feels almost useless now, arms wrapped around Annabeth’s waist and knife awkwardly strapped to her thigh. It would be almost impossible to defend herself from this position.

“And what are we supposed to do while you’re throwing bombs at bird women?” Piper calls out, not entirely sure if he can hear her over the wind and not entirely sure she wants him to.

He laughs. “You’ve got a knife! Stab stuff.”

Of course, when the harpies come, there’s hardly the time for that. Festus is twisting and winding through the air, and everything is either on fire or engulfed in smoke. Piper can hardly see, much less fight. She holds onto Annabeth tightly and wishes she could be more helpful, but the most she can do is charmspeak the harpies and hope they want to fly away as badly as she wants them gone.

“Oh, come on,” she coos, trying to grab as much attention away from Leo and Festus as she can. “You don’t want to end up fried chicken. This big dragon is going to kill you, ladies! It isn’t worth it. Let the gods fight their own battles and leave you out of it!”

It isn’t working. Either the birds can’t hear her over everything else going on or they are deliberately ignoring her. That’s what she assumes, anyway, until one of them swoops in close enough for her to get a better look.

“They’ve got  beeswax in their ears!” she shouts angrily, forgetting in her frustration to hold onto Annabeth. Harpies have never been this smart on their own; they had help. “They know about my charmspeak!”

She reaches for her knife, ready to start fighting them. But she hasn’t been careful, hasn’t been watching her back; something large and heavy hits her from behind, and she flies off of Festus. For a moment she feels weightless, surrounded by floating feathers and clouds. Then gravity starts pulling her down, and her stomach is so far into her throat that she can’t even find it in herself to cry out.

The clouds are starting to pass her now; she can see the ground, getting closer and closer. The wind roars in her ears, and she wants to shut her eyes but she can’t bring herself to. It almost doesn’t feel real. Any minute now, Jason will swoop up and grab her, or Frank will fly over and pluck her out of the sky.

Harpies are darting past her, some still with flames in their feathers. One comes too close, claws scraping harshly across Piper’s back. She cries out in pain, eyes finally closing.

Love will fall , she thinks hopelessly. This is hardly the way that she wanted to go.

And then there’s a sharp tug on her wrist. She thinks she feels something give, hears a  snap inside her head. The sudden pull upwards sends her head reeling, and suddenly her vision goes black.

\--

When she comes around, she finds herself on a sleeping bag underneath a canopy of trees. Annabeth is sitting next to her, idly knitting what might be a sweater.

“We need to get you a seatbelt,” she states. It might have offended Piper, but she can see the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Or maybe a carseat. Do you think we can find one that would attach to Festus?”

“I liked him better when he was a ship.” There’s no heat behind the words; Festus is just fine no matter what form he is, it’s Piper that decided to be stupid and let her frustration make decisions for her. She moves to sit up, slightly alarmed when she discovers that she can’t move her right wrist. There’s a splint wrapped around it, made of twigs and electrical tape.

Annabeth purses her lips. “I think I might have broken something, or at least pulled one of your ligaments,” she says. “Sorry about that. I should have gone for your forearm.”

“You would have hurt my shoulder instead,” Piper tells her. “Besides, I’d rather have a broken wrist than fall to my death.” She grins, attempting to get a laugh out of Annabeth, but it isn’t at all successful. She tries for a different tactic. “Hey, Annabeth. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” but she doesn’t look it. Her shoulders are tense and, even with her hands moving so quickly with the needles and yarn, Piper can see her hands shaking.

It wouldn’t be right to call her on it, though. Annabeth has been through a lot, has seen a lot worse than Piper has; prying it out of her probably isn’t the best way to move her along in the healing process. They sit in silence for a while. Piper takes in their surroundings, the tall trees and the trampled dirt underneath.

“I’m here if you want to talk,” Piper blurts out, at the exact same moment that Annabeth tells her, “Leo and Festus are doing perimeter searches.”

The silence that follows is so uncomfortable that Piper thinks she may actually feel it weighing down on her. They’ve both gone back to avoiding eye contact.

It never used to be like this. Back on the Argo II, she and Annabeth could talk for hours about nothing at all. After their trip to Sparta, after they learned to work together, it was almost unbelievable how well they got along. No one else was quite sure how to feel about it; certainly, Piper had no idea.

Piper misses that. It feels like ever since Annabeth and Percy broke up, she’s spent her time holed up inside the Athena cabin, drowning herself in architectural designs and scribbling down everything she can remember from Daedalus’ laptop. Getting her to open up is almost impossible.

Surprisingly, though, it’s Annabeth who ends up breaking the silence. “What did Jason want to talk to you about? Back at camp.” She looks like it’s the last thing she wanted to say, immediately biting her lip and looking back down to her knitting.

Before, they’d bonded over their boyfriends. Piper doesn’t want that to be all that they talk about, but if that’s what Annabeth is comfortable with right now, she can suck it up.

“He’s thinking about seeing someone else,” she replies. Annabeth’s hands stop what they’re doing; Piper knows now that she really is interested in the conversation, although she can’t figure out why. “He wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to be hurt by it.”

“Are you?” Annabeth chances, sounding a little hesitant. “Hurt by it, I mean.”

Piper shrugs. “It’s been long enough. I think it would be best for us both to move on to other things, you know? Cute boys, maybe even some girls.”

It’s bait. It’s a cheap attempt to get Annabeth to bite. Most importantly, it’s effective. Annabeth sputters, looking up at Piper incredulously.

“Girls?” she questions, looking for all the world like Piper has just grown a second head.

The surprise is almost enough to send Piper into a fit of giggles, but she’s afraid that it might scare Annabeth off. This is the closest she’s gotten to an open conversation in weeks, even if she’s the only one revealing any secrets. “Come on, Chase,” she teases, “you don’t think that all of this beauty can be limited to just one gender, do you?”

“And Jason?” Annabeth asks, hardly even smiling. In fact, she looks a little sick.

Piper was hardly expecting her to be the judgmental sort. She can feel the frown coming on, has to bite down a rude remark. “I don’t think I have the right to reveal that information,” she states. It may as well be an answer.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Annabeth sighs out. Piper is confused at first, and then Annabeth starts to laugh and she’s absolutely bewildered. Annabeth laughs until she’s gasping for breath, until there are tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

“What’s so funny?” Piper demands, more than a little irritated.

Annabeth seems to realize her mistake, breathing deeply to calm herself down. Still, her words are interrupted by little fits of laughter, “I thought I was the only one. Oh, Zeus almighty, I thought I was the only one,” she sighs out.

It takes Piper a moment to realize just what it is she’s getting at, and then she can’t help but start laughing too. “Is that why you’ve been so distant lately? You thought I was  straight ?”

“No, I just – look, the Greeks were never very good about this sort of thing,” Annabeth hurries to defend herself, smiling all the while. “Two men together, that wasn’t a problem, but. For girls to be with other girls was enough to have you exiled! How was I supposed to know there were other people like me in the camp?”

“You might have  asked ,” Piper wheezes, clutching at her stomach. “Gods, I live in the Aphrodite cabin! I know about everyone’s orientation, whether I want to or not!”

Annabeth snorts. “Clearly not everyone.”

It’s enough to send them both right back into hysterical laughter. By the time Leo comes back from watch duty, Piper’s abdomen is sore from laughing and her smile is so wide she’s afraid her face may break in half.

For the first time in a long while, it feels like everything between her and Annabeth may be alright. Everything might go back to normal, or even better than it used to be.

It isn’t until later that day, when Annabeth is asleep and curled up against Festus and Leo is snoring beside her that Piper realizes just what about this particular realization has her so giddy and excited. Sure, Annabeth accepts her for who she is – that was a burden she hadn’t even known she was carrying until it was lifted from her shoulders. Beyond that, though, there’s something else that has her stomach doing somersaults.

If Annabeth is like her, if Annabeth is interested in girls too, it means that Piper finally has someone that understands her. Jason tries, sure, but Annabeth is right; there’s a certain stigma attached to girls liking other girls, and he’s never been able to understand her reluctance to talk to him about her infatuations.

They’re supposed to be taking shifts for the watch, letting each other rest up before they start in on the journey to Maine, but Piper doesn’t think she’ll be able to get any sleep for a while yet. She listens to the birds singing around her and thinks that maybe coming on this quest wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

The next morning, after some nectar and ambrosia, Annabeth pulls her aside. “Let’s have a look at that wrist.” She moves Piper to sit down, gently unravelling the electrical tape.

It’s swollen and red, definitely not entirely healed over. When Annabeth takes her hand away, the weight of her hand is almost alarmingly painful. Piper winces, biting her lip.

“Sore?” Annabeth asks, repositioning the sticks holding it straight.

Piper nods, trying not to seem too torn up. She’s definitely dealt with worse injuries before; she can handle a broken wrist, alright, it isn’t going to kill her. “A little bit,” she replies, hating the way her voice cracks.

“Well,” and somehow Leo must have found some medical tape in that tool belt of his, because Annabeth has produced a roll of it from the pocket of her jeans, “I’m no Will Solace, but I think you’ll be okay.”

Piper stifles a laugh with her free hand. “You mean we won’t have to amputate?” she asks.

“Unfortunately not. No hook hand for you,” Annabeth deadpans. “A little more ambrosia and you should be all set in two or three days. I’ll check it again tomorrow, just in case.” She starts wrapping Piper’s wrist in tape, checking every few seconds to make sure it isn’t causing any pain.

There’s a leaf in her hair. Piper almost wants to reach up and pluck it out, but she doesn’t know what Annabeth would do if she did, so she leaves it alone.

\--

After the harpies, Piper had expected to spend this journey surrounded by enemies at all times. So far, though, the travel is steady. They’ve been on the quest for two days now; five more until the date Calypso gave them, although they may have a little leeway there.

Festus is flying somewhere over New Hampshire; according to Leo, they should be in Maine by this afternoon. Piper has been forbidden from riding at the back of the group, so she’s sandwiched by Leo and Annabeth in the middle. She supposes there are worse places to be.

“How will we know when we’ve found the hunters?” Piper asks, not entirely sure who it is that she expects to have an answer.

Leo laughs, shoulder shaking under her chin. “They’ll be trying to shoot us out of the sky, Pipes. Won’t be too hard.”

She almost wants to laugh with him, but she thinks he might be serious. Judging by the way Annabeth’s arms tighten around her waist, she feels the same.

“Can Festus handle that?” Annabeth asks, leaning forward so Leo can hear.

“Festus can handle anything! I’m the one who built him, remember?”

Annabeth snorts. “Wasn’t he also the one in charge of building the new rock climbing wall?” she asks. Piper tries to hide her laugh in a cough, and was overall unsuccessful.

“Not my fault!” Leo insists. “I had no idea that Nico was going to run around ripping open giant chasms, alright, the foundation wasn’t made to handle that sort of stress!”

No one had actually been around the wall when it collapsed, which was probably for the best. Nico’s stunt, an attempt at distracting the opposing team during a game of capture the flag, had caused an earthquake that sent the whole structure crumbling down.

It had looked like fireworks, except for the part where they hadn’t actually left the ground before going off. Leo had nearly burst into tears.

“I’m sure Festus is much better off than that silly old wall, anyhow.” Piper runs her hand along the golden scales, enjoying the way that Festus clicks and hums under the praise.

But then Annabeth is grabbing her hand and putting it back on Leo’s waist. “Hey now,” she intones, “remember what happened last time you let go of your seat buddy?”

“One time!” Piper whines. “You fall off a dragon  one time , and suddenly you’re a hazard!”

Annabeth laughs, and the feeling of her breath on the back of Piper’s neck sends a shiver up her spine.

Well , she thinks,  that’s new .

“Hey, guys,” Leo says. “I hate to interrupt you, I really do, but I think we found the hunters.”

The first arrow clangs against Festus’ wing, falling back down. The second hits one of his legs. He roars mechanically in protest, halting their forward motion and rearing up. Piper feels Annabeth’s arms tighten around her waist and mimics the action, pulling in closer to Leo.

“How rude,” he mutters, “they didn’t even take us to dinner first.”

The second wave of arrows is beaten off by the wind from Festus’ wings, which is lucky for them; clinging to his back like this, they’re more exposed than Piper is comfortable with.

“Anybody have a plan?” she asks, hoping that Annabeth says yes and Leo doesn’t answer at all.

For a moment, everything is silent but for the sound of Festus’ wings beating. Then a gunshot goes off, and the crack it makes against his golden underside isn’t at all promising.

“Leo, we need to get down there,” Annabeth instructs. “How close to the treetops can we get?”

“Close enough,” he answers. His hands are pulling and pressing on the control system in front of him, and soon enough they’re straightening out until Festus is horizontal again.

The dragon flies forward at an alarming speed, and Piper is almost afraid that Annabeth is going to fall off. She takes one hand off of Leo to press against where Annabeth’s hands are clasped over her abdomen, trying to help and to reassure herself all at once.

“Piper, I’m going to need you to jump with me,” Annabeth orders her. “I need your help calming down the hunters that are following us. When it’s safe, you can use Katoptris to signal Leo.”

Piper doesn’t understand why she’s playing diplomat; the hunters all know Annabeth. According to camp rumors, she was even invited to join them. Surely her charmspeak isn’t necessary when they have all of that at their disposal.

But she doesn’t really have time to argue; the trees are approaching fast. When she can make out the leaves on the individual branches, Piper feels Annabeth’s grip loosen up until she’s sliding off, down Festus’ tail. She drops into the canopy and disappears.

“We’ll let you know when it’s safe,” Piper promises, squeezing Leo tightly before letting her own hands slip. Moving down into the trees looked a lot easier when Annabeth did it; Piper’s splint causes too much friction to slide easily, and when she gets into the canopy she almost misses her opportunity to grab onto a branch.

The wood bends harshly under her weight, but it holds. She can see Annabeth a few feet below her, crawling down the trunk of the tree. Piper looks at her injured hand, hanging uselessly at her side, and thinks again that it was a bad idea for her to come along.

She shifts her weight back and forth, trying to gain enough momentum to move closer to the trunk of the tree. It doesn’t really work, but the branch underneath her is wide enough that she can probably drop onto it and hang on until Annabeth comes to help her. Probably.

It’s the best shot she has, anyway. She can’t go holding on with one hand forever. Piper lets go, landing a little unsteadily on her feet and waving her arms. An alarmed little gasp leaves her mouth, and Annabeth’s head snaps up to look at her.

Whatever she looks like right now, it must be entertaining; Annabeth’s whole face lights up in a smile. “Idiot,” she calls out. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Piper holds up her splint. “I’ve already done that once. How much worse can it really get?”

Annabeth’s smile drops so quickly that Piper thinks she may have said something wrong. Then, of course, she feels the blade pressing up against her back. It’s just beneath her ribcage; she doesn’t know if getting stabbed there would kill her, but she imagines it would be pretty painful either way.

“Good question,” a girl says. “It mostly depends on what you’re doing here.”

Piper wills herself to breathe deeply and remain calm. She slowly moves to steady herself with her good hand, holding her injured one out with an open palm. “Hi,” she says, aiming for cheerful. She isn’t entirely sure that it works. “We’re friends of Thalia Grace. Her brother Jason told us where you were.”

That doesn’t seem to be the answer the hunter wanted; the blade digs into Piper’s skin just a little, twisting. Piper feels the sting and thinks it might have drawn blood. “Why did you need our whereabouts?” the girl demands.

“We think Lady Artemis might be able to help us with a quest of ours,” Annabeth responds. Piper looks down to meet her eye, only to find that she’s busy watching something else. There are other hunters around them, hidden in the foliage. One must have an arrow aimed in her direction.

“Why would the Lady want to help you?”

Piper turns her head slowly, trying to figure out if she can make eye contact with the girl behind her. It’s pointless; she can’t move much at all without risking a fall. She remembers something Jason said about Thalia’s letter.

“Because we can help her,” she answers. Her voice is low, and she’s trying her hardest to weave the charmspeak into her words. If the hunters would just let their guard down for one minute, she could get them to listen.

“Artemis doesn’t need help from a child of Aphrodite. Love has never been an interest of hers.”

Piper tries again. “She hasn’t been herself lately, has she?” The knife pulls away for a moment, unsure, but it doesn’t take long before the hunter has regained her control. Piper doesn’t let it distract her; she’s found the nerve and she’s going to keep prodding it. “You came here to protect a deer, right? That’s what she said. Only you haven’t seen a deer since you’ve come here. You’re worried about her. You don’t know what’s wrong with Lady Artemis, but you know that I’m telling the truth.”

Annabeth still isn’t looking at her, eyes tracking movement from somewhere else. It doesn’t matter; Piper keeps her eyes focused on a curl of her blonde hair, zoning in on it and concentrating.

“If you let us talk with her, we may be able to help,” she suggests. “We are not a threat, not even the boy with the dragon. You need our help.”

Piper remembers her conversations with Hazel, discussing the Mist and her charmspeak. You can’t make someone see something they don’t already have in their heads. It has to come from them. She can sense the worry coming off the hunters around her, even the ones she can’t see; they are all afraid, even if they won’t show it.

“You don’t know what to do,” she continues on. “You’re worried about your Lady, and you can’t figure out how to help her.”

The blade slips from the hunter’s fingers, falling out of her hand and snapping branches on its way down to the ground. Piper holds back her sigh of relief.

“We can help. Let us talk with her.”

Annabeth looks up to Piper in amazement, relief clearly written on her face.

“Come with us,” the hunter says, and Piper hears her moving off through the trees.

She makes her way to the trunk of the tree and climbs down slowly, watching Annabeth moving below her and copying her steps. When they’re on the ground, Annabeth wraps her up in a hug.

“That was amazing,” she whispers.

Piper feels herself blushing and ducks her face into Annabeth’s neck, trying to hide it. “We should probably let Leo know we’re okay.”

“Right, yeah,” Annabeth agrees. She pulls away and Piper slips Katoptris out of her sheath, holding it in some of the light filtering through the trees and shaking it back and forth. She hopes that Leo can see it.

Belatedly, she remembers that Leo knows Morse code. For all she knows, she might have just told him that they were being eaten alive by a couple of bears.

Before she has time to correct it and send something a little more coherent, Annabeth is putting a hand on her arm and moving her forward. There’s a girl dressed in camouflage a few feet away from them, almost entirely invisible in the surrounding forest. There is a bow slung over her shoulder. She nods to Annabeth and Piper.

“The Lady is this way,” she tells them, turning and vanishing into the shadows.

They follow her through the forest, not entirely sure what they’re about to walk into. Every now and then, Piper thinks she might see something out of the corner of her eye – the flash of metal in the sun, a stray bit of hair that doesn’t match the scenery; but she never sees any of the hunters entirely, probably because they don’t want her to.

When they make it into camp, almost nothing changes. There is no clearing, just the occasional black tent placed between protruding roots and a single fire pit, mostly covered with dirt and leaves. Festus and Leo are there already, surrounded by various spear-wielding women.

“What are you doing here?” Annabeth hisses, frustrated. “You were supposed to wait for our signal!”

Leo looks at her blankly. “Didn’t you give me the signal? That’s what the whole knife-flashy bit was, right?”

“That was just to let you know we hadn’t  died .”

“You need to give more specific instructions, then,” he tells her, mock-scolding. “Or at least tell Piper to give more specific instructions.”

“Don’t shoot the messanger,” Piper retorts, holding both hands up. “I repeated what was told to me.”

Annabeth scoffs. The hunters have been watching this exchange with eerily apathetic expressions, apparently completely uninterested in what is going on. They still have their spears aimed at Leo and Festus, but it seems more like a precaution than an offensive tactic now that it’s clear they aren’t a threat.

And then one of the tents open and someone steps out. Before Piper can get a good look, Annabeth is sprinting forward.

“Thalia!” she yells, wrapping her old friend in a hug. Thalia hugs her back, although it’s a little more restrained. Her black hair is flat against her head and she’s got dark circles under her eyes.

“What are you doing here, Annabeth?” Thalia asks, once they’ve pulled away. “Didn’t you do enough last summer to opt out of any future quests?”

“That’s not really how it works, actually.” The smile that Annabeth gives her is small and warm, almost like a secret. Piper wants to look away. “Quests kind of make that decision for you.”

“Well, whatever we can do for you, we’re happy to help.” It doesn’t really feel believable with all the weaponry pointed at them, but Thalia fixes that too after a moment with a, “Aren’t we, girls?”

The hunters all lower their weapons and murmur their reluctant consent. Some of them return to their tents with little to no delay, now dismissed from duty; others start to search the perimeter, or else gather around the fire with stones and start sharpening their spears and knives.

None of this stops Thalia and Annabeth talking. They continue on with idle chatter. Piper makes her way over to Leo, trying not to catch any unwanted or hostile attention. She’s come to the conclusion that a child of Aphrodite isn’t likely to find friends here.

He sees her coming and grins, all teeth and squinty eyes. “Tired of third-wheeling, little love bird?” His voice is full of false pity, almost to the point of being condescending, and Piper has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about?” Somehow, it ends up as a question. Piper doesn’t bother correcting it.

Leo snorts at her. “Ohhh,  Annababes , thank you sooo much for saving me when I fell!” he mocks, throwing a hand over his forehead and leaning back against Festus. “If only there were some way I could  thank you!”

Piper can feel the nearest hunters staring at her. She’s fighting back a blush, but Leo has regressed to making disgusting kissing noises and gasping theatrically. If she’s embarrassed, it’s only because he’s making a scene.

“I have never in my life referred to her as  Annababes ,” is apparently the best defense that Piper can come up with, mostly because she’s still trying to figure out exactly what he’s talking about. There is no way that she’s jealous of Thalia; she and Annabeth are close enough, they’re great friends, and there is nothing to be jealous about.

Of course, it doesn’t help at all. Leo howls in laughter, sliding down Festus until he’s on the ground clutching at his stomach. “Oh my god,” he gasps, “you don’t  know .”

“What,” Piper demands, “don’t I know?”

“Only that you and our nearly-fearless leader have been flirting with each other relentlessly ever since she broke your wrist,” Leo explains, still chuckling. “Oh my god. I can’t believe it wasn’t on purpose.  Oh, Annabeth, my wrist! Can you redo my bandages with your nimble knitting fingers? ”

“Listen, Leo, I know that you and Calypso are happy off in your little honeymoon phase, but that doesn’t mean you’re a relationship expert now.”

“It’s been a year, Pipes. That’s no honeymoon; that’s success.”

Piper sighs. “I don’t like Annabeth that way,” she insists, moving to sit down next to him.

“So like. If saving your life is just flirting, what would it take to confess undying love in your weird little world?”

\--

Annabeth and Thalia have been inside one of the tents for hours. Not that Piper’s keeping track for any personal reasons or anything, it’s just that they have some time constraints, and they can’t spend too much time socializing with old friends.

This particular fact doesn’t seem to bother Leo, though. He has become a source of entertainment for the hunters, an absolute delight. One of them is a daughter of Hephaestus, apparently, and they’ve been talking about various feats of engineering for at least twenty minutes now.

Her name is Cleo. She looks to be in her late teens, probably closer to her twenties, and she seems nice enough. Piper isn’t exactly in the mood for socializing, though, and doesn’t bother trying.

“You built oars that rowed themselves?” she asks, eyes bright. They’re a curious orange color and kind of creepy, but Piper can’t stop looking at them.

Leo nods enthusiastically, apparently delighted to have someone who understands just how impressive he really is. “Through the air, actually! The ship was capable of travel both by air and by water.”

This seems to delight her. She laughs and pats Festus’ side in awe. “You are a magnificent beast, Mr. Festus,” she tells him. He clicks at her in a way that might be friendly.

Finally, Thalia and Annabeth emerge from where they’ve been hiding. Rather than the excitement she’d shown upon arrival at the camp, Annabeth is wearing an expression of concern. She doesn’t seem to be very pleased to see Piper, either, which absolutely does not hurt Piper’s feelings.

“Hello, Thalia Grace,” Leo calls out. “Your brother sends his love.”

“I’m sure he does,” Thalia responds coolly. “Cleo, would you mind going to relieve Lizzy from her post? She’s had watch twice today and could use a break.”

Cleo, apparently very perceptive, nods and rushes off. Piper is positive that Lizzy is not actually about to get the break she deserves.

“You’ve got some nice girls on your team,” Leo tells her, apparently not as quick to pick up cues as his half-sister. Piper almost wants to hit him.

Thalia sits down in front of them, not bothering to give him a response. She jumps right into business. “Listen, guys, I know you think Artemis can help you. But I don’t think you’re going to find out anything about the torch or the scales. My Lady is… not herself, as of late.”

“So we’ve been told,” Piper comments, pulling up a strand of grass and beginning to dissect it. “That’s actually kind of what we’re here for.”

“And I appreciate that, but she isn’t exactly accepting visitors at the moment.”

Piper drops the grass and pushes herself up off the ground. “I can fix that. Which tent is she in?”

“Hey,” Annabeth interrupts, moving to stand between Piper and Thalia. “That’s not going to work, Piper. If it backfires, she could kill all of us in a minute.”

“So what do you suggest?” Leo follows Piper’s lead, standing up. He adjusts the goggles resting on his head and shifts his tool belt. “I could smoke her out of the tent.”

Thalia sighs, looking to Annabeth. “You won’t be able to talk to her.”

“We can try.”

She looks at all of them in turn, apparently realizing that they aren’t about to give up this fight. Thalia rolls her eyes and gestures to her left. “Follow me at your own risk, kids. I will not be held responsible for anything that happens to you.”

“Understood.” Piper brushes dirt off her jeans and follows immediately after Thalia, refusing to show fear. She could put Gaia to sleep; convincing Artemis to tell them what’s really going on isn’t beyond her skill set.

But Annabeth is just one step behind her, and after a moment she places a hand on Piper’s shoulder. “Are you alright, Piper?” she questions, voice soft.

“Fine.” She’s angry, and objectively she knows that it isn’t going to help anything to stay that way. But it’s one thing to doubt your own skills and an entirely different thing for someone you’ve never even met telling you that something is beyond you. Especially when that someone is Thalia Grace.

Annabeth takes her hand back. “If you say so,” she says. They stay quiet after that, following Thalia around twists and turns until they reach a secluded area.

She motions for them to stop and then points to the base of a large walnut tree. The nuts are scattered on the ground, most of them smashed to reveal the black meat inside. Hidden carefully under a mat of old leaves and woven grass is a tent, larger than the others that they’d seen in the center of the camp.

“My Lady,” Thalia calls out, “may I enter?”

A worn, tired voice responds, “Send the children in, Lieutenant. I know why they are here.”

Thalia looks just as shocked as Piper feels. “Are you certain, Lady?”

“It is better today than it has been,” Artemis states.

Thalia’s lips twist into an uncertain grimace, but she motions for them to move forward anyway. Annabeth leads the way, opening the flap of the tent. Leo follows her. Piper feels oddly uncertain suddenly, all of her resolution drained from her body. She allows herself to hesitate for just a moment before pulling the flap of the tent aside and moving into the dim space.

When Piper last saw Artemis, she had the appearance of an adolescent girl. She looks much older now, tall and stately even as she lays on the ground. There are lines etched deep in the skin of her face, and she doesn’t even bother opening her eyes. Her hair is going grey at the roots.

She has a shaky hand extended to Leo. “I remember you,” Artemis says. It sounds like she is trying to make herself believe it. “You came to my home. You played… that music. That infernal song. You gave my brother a new toy.”

Leo looks slightly offended, but he knows better than to defend his music to her. “That was me, yes.”

Artemis scoffs and lets her hand fall. “You will never be able to accomplish your quest with this one present,” she tells Annabeth. Piper knows better than to assume that she is a part of this conversation just yet. “You should have brought another girl along. Even Hades’ Roman would have been better off.”

“You have underestimated the sons of demigods before,” Annabeth chastises her. In any other circumstance, that might have earned her an arrow through the chest. As it is, Artemis just lets out a heavy sigh.

“I assume you are here to ask about the skies.”

That is not at all what they’re here for, but no one moves to correct her. What she has to say may be more helpful than any questions they could ask.

Artemis continues on, slowly. Listening to her speak is enough to make Piper’s eyelids heavy, like she’s entered the cabin of Hypnos. “My brother and I no longer control it,” she tells them. “When Gaia returned, she brought more than we realized. It was not only the giants that she woke. Older gods, ones we thought had long since left us, have come back. They are stronger and we cannot fight them off.”

Piper risks interrupting, moving further into the tent. It’s cramped in there, but she hardly notices how close they are until she feels Leo’s elbow digging into her ribs. “Is that why you’ve come here? To fight?”

Artemis’ eyes shoot open, focusing in on Piper with startling clarity. “I do not wish to fight her when she is this powerful.” She is condescending, voice suddenly sharp. “I would have to steal the torch from her. Whoever has the torch decides the proper order of things. Previously, it had been mine to guard. It was stolen from me, and I have come to take it back before I grow any weaker.”

“Who is she?” Annabeth asks, resting a hand on Artemis’ arm. Piper almost expects her to be shot down by lightning or something, but it looks like Artemis can’t even feel it. “Who stole from you?”

“The moon.” Artemis’ shaky hand is pointing upwards, straight to the apex of the tent. “Selene has come back for the moon.”

Her hand collapses at her side and she falls silent. For a moment, Piper thinks that that is all; they won’t be getting anything more out of her. But her eyes are still fixed on Piper, curious.

“Your loyalties have changed, Annabeth Chase,” she says. “I had hoped that it meant you would finally join me, but it seems I have missed the opportunity to take you in.”

Piper feels the shiver of discomfort running up her spine. “Piper,” she corrects. Her throat is suddenly dry. “My name is Piper McLean.”

Artemis’ eyes close. “All three of you are unworthy of joining my pack. Leave me.”

They don’t push it. Piper exits the tent first, blinking against the sunlight.

Thalia is resting against the nearest tree, eyes closed. When she hears them coming, her eyes open. It’s eerily similar to what they’d just experienced with Artemis, and Piper feels an inexplicable dizziness.

Annabeth and Leo stumble out behind her.

“How long were we in there?” Leo asks. He looks incredibly disoriented, eyes glancing around uncertainly.

It only felt like a few minutes; Piper feels a creeping sense of dread, growing as the silence stretches on. Thalia seems cagey, avoiding their eyes.

“It’s been two days,” she tells them. “I didn’t expect her to tell you much; time moves differently in there. She’s trying to draw out her time until we can do something for her.”

Leo nods as if he understands. Piper realizes that he does; he spent a long time with Calypso, and she doubtless explained it to him. “Well, that’s bad news,” he tells her, “because we’ve only got three days left to pull this whole stunt off.”

\--

“We’re going to have to split up,” Annabeth tells them. She’s reluctant, Piper knows; she doesn’t need to be. “We don’t have time to fly to all three of the places and search for the objects as a group.”

Leo nods. “I see what you’re saying, Annabeth, I really do,” he intones. “Unfortunately, there are people out there who would really like to see us dead. We have to stay in groups for safety.”

Piper and Annabeth meet each other’s eyes over the campfire. They don’t say anything, but it’s there anyway; whether Leo likes it or not, the fact of the matter is that they don’t know enough about their adversaries to plan around it. If they really are up against the moon, chances are she can see everything they do as they’re doing it. Dividing up is the best way to keep her busy.

“Oh no,” he starts again, holding up both of his hands. “Listen, I promised both Percy and Jason that I wouldn’t let you two go around doing stupid things. I thought it was ironic at the time, but now I see why they were worried: the two of you have completely lost it. We are not all about to go out there on our  own .”

“Percy and Jason aren’t allowed to make our decisions, especially not anymore,” Piper reminds him. When he looks at her, mouth agape, she shrugs. “She’s right, Leo. We have three places to go, three mythical objects to steal, and three people. We don’t have enough time to stick together. It draws too much attention.”

“I can’t believe this!” Leo groans, standing up and running a hand through his hair. “You just expect to split up and make it out of this alive? Are you  kidding me ?”

Piper feels a little bad for using her charmspeak. “Leo, please sit down,” she tells him. He does so, admittedly with a little reluctance. “Look, nothing is going to happen. We’re all going to be okay. We’ve been through worse.”

His shoulders droop. “I suppose I don’t really get a choice in this, do I?” he asks, fiddling with a loose thread along the hem of his t-shirt.

Annabeth sighs. “No one likes the idea, Leo. It just makes the most sense right now.”

“So who’s going where?” he asks, motioning for her to continue.

“We can’t assume that Selene is the only one we’re fighting, first off.” Annabeth is digging through her backpack, looking for something. “As far as we know she just wants to keep the torch for herself. Artemis didn’t seem to know anything about the scales or the lightning bolt.”

Leo huffs. “Who else could there be? We killed all the giants, and Gaia isn’t an issue anymore either.”

Piper can understand his frustration. Somehow, no matter how many battles they fight, there’s always some other villain waiting around the corner for them. She’s getting a little tired of it, too. She’s not even a legal adult yet and she’s still expected to save the world.

“Apollo is a target, too. Judging by where Artemis is at, he’s hardly in a place to fight off whatever sun god is stealing his powers from him,” Piper supplies. It’s hardly helpful, but it’s a good starting point.

Annabeth nods. She’s gotten a laptop out of her bag and is scrolling through a document. “I think… his name is Helios? It should be, anyway. The old sun god. Eventually, the Greeks didn’t see the point in worshipping so many gods, so they just passed the moon and sun down to the twins and left it there.”

“Harsh,” Leo mutters. “No wonder they’re pissed.”

“So why are we out doing this, then?” Piper demands, suddenly frustrated. “It isn’t our fault the Greeks gave up on a couple of their old gods. It isn’t our fault that they’re back and trying to take back what was theirs to begin with. What’s the worst they could do, anyway? Take away Daylight Savings Time?”

She doesn’t exactly know where this outburst is coming from, but now that it’s started she can’t seem to stop it. The anger and frustration she’s been biting down all week is finally bubbling to the surface; this quest had been easy so far because the gods knew they couldn’t win it. There was no point in delaying their travels, because once they got there they’d be struck down like weeds. It was hopeless and she was angry and it wasn’t fair.

Piper curses, pushing up off the ground and storming off. The sun is lower in the sky now, just one more sign that time is passing. They don’t have time for her to go around throwing tantrums, but she doesn’t know how to stop it now that it’s started.

Everything she’s been through has been a result of the gods meddling with her life, and Piper is so tired of it all. She wants to go back to camp and spend time with her friends, wants to sleep in her cabin and worry about who’s going to win capture the flag. She wants to go on dates like normal people her age, not fly around on a hulking golden dragon in an attempt to defeat the  moon .

She had never asked for this, she had never wanted it, and she doesn’t want to do it anymore.

The tears are a bit embarrassing, but not something she’s altogether surprised by. Piper keeps moving forward, not entirely sure where she’s going and entirely certain that she doesn’t care at all. Artemis’ hunters are watching her like she’s some kind of exhibit in a zoo, something vaguely familiar that they don’t get to see very often. She wants to scream at them, to ask them how they could possibly dedicate their lives to serving someone so determined to meddle in the affairs of innocent people, but her throat is tight and she isn’t sure she can get the words out.

It feels like she’s walked miles by the time she finally gets away from it all, tucking herself back behind a tree and sitting on the ground. Piper sniffles pitifully, swatting at her eyes. It all feels stupid now, like a child who doesn’t get to eat a cookie after dinner, but gods, she doesn’t regret any of it. She needed the release. Bottling it up wasn’t doing her any good.

Hera made her believe in a history that wasn’t real, gave her love and then took it all away again. Athena sent her own daughter on a mad chase to find a statue, only to send her off to Tartarus. Leo’s mom died in a fire because the gods wanted him to be  special . None of it is right, none of it is fair, and she’s tired of putting on a brave face and pretending she can accept what has been handed to her.

Piper cries until her chest aches, until her eyes feel swollen and her nose is stuffed up. She doesn’t know how long it’s been, only that she’s being silly wasting all of this time crying. She’s supposed to be off saving everyone again. But the more she thinks about it, the worse she feels, so she pulls her knees to her chest and lets the tears fall.

Eventually she can hear the sounds of someone coming after her, the distinctly noisy footsteps to give her proper warning. Whoever it is, they want her to know that she can tell them to leave if she still wants to be alone.

Piper isn’t sure that being alone is what she actually wants anymore, though; she doesn’t say anything, and tries not to look too surprised when it’s Annabeth who kneels down in front of her.

“It’s time to check on your wrist,” she says, completely ignoring the hiccoughing sobs that Piper can’t seem to stop. “It should be alright by now.”

Copying the nonchalant nature of her actions is easy enough. Piper holds out her bandaged hand, trying her hardest to slow her breathing until it matches the pace that Annabeth is setting. Breathe in, breathe out, repeat. Simple. Mechanical.

Annabeth unwraps her wrist carefully, avoiding eye contact. Piper’s hand doesn’t feel so heavy anymore, and the swelling is gone.

“Tell me if it hurts,” Annabeth instructs her. She carefully bends Piper’s wrist back and forth, circling it around. It’s a little sore, but it seems to be alright; when there are no sharp inhales, no gasps of pain, Annabeth smiles up at her. “See?” she asks. “It’s alright.”

Her voice is quiet and gentle, like she’s talking to a child. Piper appreciates it, wonders at how Annabeth has somehow managed to be exactly the right person at any given time over the course of this trip. It’s different to how she was with Percy, but Piper is beginning to wonder if Leo has been seeing everything for exactly what it is this entire time.

“Annabeth,” Piper starts. It sounds raspy, like she’s been swallowing sand. She clears her throat and tries again. “Annabeth, what was Artemis talking about earlier? About your loyalties changing?”

Silence falls over them like a blanket. Annabeth keeps holding Piper’s wrist, running her thumb over the pulse point over and over. It wouldn’t be outrageous of her to snap at Piper, to tell her it’s nothing and then walk away; she’s done it before, although it’s gotten rarer as they’ve gotten to know each other.

“Artemis wanted me to join her hunters once,” Annabeth tells her, straightening her spine. She’s got a grim sort of determination in her eyes, the same stubbornness that Piper knows must have kept her alive down in Tartarus. “I wouldn’t do it, though. I couldn’t leave the camp behind me, especially not when Percy and I were starting to open up to one another.”

Everyone knows this story; it’s been whispered behind hands at meal times, passed from one person to the next like something brought to class for show-and-tell. But Annabeth herself has never told anyone about it, to Piper’s knowledge; she feels special to be on the receiving end of this, to hear it directly from her. It feels less like a legend and more like the truth.

“After Percy and I broke up, I thought about leaving.”

It hits Piper like a bucket of cold water to the face, but she holds her tongue; they all thought about leaving camp at one time or another, especially after defeating Gaia. Everything feels a little trivial, and once the pleasant feeling of relaxation fades into boredom, you start feeling lost and disoriented without the threat of death hanging over your head.

“I talked to my mom about it a couple of times, too, just to see what she thought. Goddess of wisdom and all, you’d think she would be a good person to ask for advice. But she said it was my decision to make, said she wasn’t going to go on deciding my destiny for me. As if that’s ever been a problem for her before.”

Her free hand rubs at her ankle, the only evidence that remains from the Prophecy of Seven. “Artemis must have heard about it somehow. She was probably waiting for the right time to offer me her patronage or something, now that I was up for grabs.”

Again she falls silent, looking back to where her fingers are looped around Piper’s wrist. It’s hard to be patient when they’re this close to getting somewhere; after about thirty seconds, Piper caves.

“You’re not anymore?” she prods, tilting her head to the side. She’s trying to look like she doesn’t have any idea where this is going, if only because she doesn’t want to jump to conclusions and find out that she’s reading all of this entirely wrong. Better to suffer that humiliation in solitude.

But then Annabeth is grinning at her, small and warm like a secret. “Not exactly,” she says. “I’ve kind of got my eyes on someone.”

Piper’s lips are chapped and Annabeth’s hair is tickling her cheek, but it’s still a pretty amazing kiss.

\--

They don’t have much time left to bicker over who goes where, which works just fine for Piper. She and Annabeth make their way back to the campfire together. When Leo sees them, he shakes his head and frowns.

“How am I supposed to make you feel inferior now that you’re both happily involved?” he laments.

Annabeth ignores him. “We have less than seventy-two hours to get the torch, the scales, and one of Zeus’ lightning bolts back to Camp Half Blood. If we’re splitting up, we’re going to have to focus on speed more than anything.”

“Festus and I can take Virginia, then,” Leo offers. “He’ll move fast enough if I’m the only one riding him. We’ll be cutting it kind of close, but it’s probably our best option.”

Piper doesn’t hesitate. “You should take Annabeth as close to New York as you can manage, then.” They both look ready to argue with her; she doesn’t care. It’s a low-hanging fruit, and she’s going to grab it. “Athena is Zeus’ favorite daughter. He’s going to give you whatever you ask for, especially after everything you did to get the Athena Parthenos for her.”

It’s a solid argument, really; Annabeth looks stunned for a moment, possibly a little angry, but she won’t be able to come up with a good retort and they both know it. Piper’s charmspeak would only be effective if Zeus were to trust her with his weaponry, which he wouldn’t. Aphrodite and her children are hardly his favorite relatives, especially after the mess with Silena Beauregard.

“And you?” Leo asks tentatively, standing up. “You’re going to go running off into Maine with no idea what you’re looking for to face some crazy goddess we know nothing about, Piper?”

Piper snorts. “You’re going off to Virginia to fight the literal sun, Leo. I don’t think you have the right to tell me that I’m making poor decisions.”

“And given the fact that they know we’re getting close,” Annabeth observes, voice tight, “we’re all likely to run into some nasty monsters along the way.”

“Perfect!” Only it doesn’t sound like Leo really thinks it’s “perfect,” it sounds like he thinks it’s impossible. Piper is inclined to agree. “I’ll tell Festus we need to get a move on, how about that?” He walks away before they can respond, leaving Piper awkwardly avoiding Annabeth’s glare.

“If you ever try and shelter me from the most dangerous tasks again, Piper McLean, we’re going to have a serious problem,” she grits out. “I hated when Percy did it, and I’m not very fond of you doing it either. My feelings for you don’t negate that.”

Piper frowns, but she doesn’t really want to argue just before they separate. “If there were a logical reason to send you off to fight Selene instead of me, I would consider it,” she says instead. “Can we just agree that the situation sucks for everyone and try not to take that out on each other?”

“Fine,” Annabeth sighs. She doesn’t seem too pleased about it, but Piper doesn’t think she’ll protest anymore. For a moment, Annabeth’s brow furrows. She hesitates, but then her arms are around Piper’s waist and her nose is cold in the crook of Piper’s neck. “Be safe, alright, Pipes?”

“You’ve never called me that before,” Piper comments. “I like it.”

Annabeth huffs out a laugh. “If we both make it back to camp in one piece, I won’t ever call you anything else.”

“We’ll make it back, Annabeth. No way we’re going down this easy, not after everything we’ve been through,” she responds. Annabeth takes a step back, detaching herself reluctantly. She offers a peck on the cheek and a small wave, and then she’s off to find Leo and Piper is left on her own.

Or at least she thought she was until Cleo stepped forward, orange eyes reflecting the campfire with eerily specific detail. “You’re lucky Lady Artemis didn’t see that,” she scolds. “Behavior of that sort is strictly forbidden within the camp boundaries. If she were stronger, you would have an arrow through the heart.”

“I think she should be able to make an exception, considering we’re about to risk our lives to save hers.” Piper hardly has the patience for the gods, much less a lecture on chastity. “Actually, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing right now. So I’m going to head out.”

Cleo smiles at her and nods. “Yeah, of course. Do you want a lift?”

Piper isn’t exactly sure how to respond to that; as it turns out, she doesn’t really have to. After a second of silence, Cleo lets out the loudest whistle that Piper has ever heard. She plugs her ears in an effort to block some of it out, but it still leaves her head ringing.

“What was that?” she demands. “Are you trying to make me go deaf?”

“I was calling a ride for you. Her name is Dolores.” Cleo points behind Piper. When she turns around, she almost collapses. There’s a huge greyhound standing deathly still, coat practically blending in with the surroundings. “We don’t walk everywhere, you know.”

\--

It’s harder being on her own than she thought it would be. Dolores had gotten skittish and left her about two hours ago, although she’d gotten Piper well beyond New Hampshire’s state border before that happened. Now Piper was all alone, looking for any signs of life – mythological or otherwise. She thinks she may be wandering through some kind of national park.

Leo could already be out in Virginia somewhere looking for the scales, hopefully still in one piece. Annabeth is in Manhattan, trying to convince Zeus to give her a lightning bolt. It’s better not to think about it, really, because the sun set shortly after Dolores left her and she doesn’t want to end up wondering if Selene is watching her or somebody else.

She especially doesn’t need to think about Annabeth right now. She doesn’t need to wonder about her health, worry if she’s okay, if she’s going to get the lightning bolt and make it back to camp. Worrying isn’t going to keep Annabeth safe, and it definitely won’t help her find the torch.

If only Rachel had given them the prophecy sooner, they might have had more time; they might have been able to stay together. She can’t even contact them to ask what’s going on; they hadn’t had enough drachma to consider Iris messaging, can’t have cellphones. For the first time in gods only know how long, Piper is totally and completely alone.

She trips over something, tumbling into the undergrowth and cursing all the while. When Piper stands up, angrily tugging leaves out of her braids, she turns around and finds herself staring at a statue.

Or at least it  looks  like a statue. A soft breeze blows, ruffling the hair, and it’s only then that Piper realizes that it’s a person, living and breathing. She leans down to get a closer look; they’ve got long silvery hair bunched up behind their head, as if it’s grown longer since they laid down. Their skin is pale white, with a splatter of light freckles across their nose.

Their hands are clasped over their stomach, and a staff is on the ground beside them. They’re wearing old robes and their feet are bare. If Piper didn’t know better, she’d say they were a –

“Shepherd, yes,” a woman’s voice finishes. Piper jumps, pulling her knife from its sheath and turning to face her opponent.

There’s no one there, but the scenery has changed. Instead of the dense forestry that she’d been wandering through, Piper is looking at a perfect little meadow. The moon is shining bright above her, full and heavy. There’s a little pond and a few sheep wandering around aimlessly. Piper doesn’t know how she missed it before.

“I didn’t want you to find it, dear,” the voice whispers. It sounds like the woman is right beside her, but there’s no one there. Another breeze comes through, this time pulling at Piper’s braid and twirling it.

She looks back at the statue-person, thinking that the voice may be coming from there. The mouth hasn’t moved, though; there’s a coat of sand over it, undisturbed.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he,” the woman states. It isn’t a question. “I wanted him for a pet, but he was stubborn. He said he would rather continue on living in his little meadow. So I let him.”

Piper realizes who she’s speaking to with a start. “Selene?” she asks, looking up to the bright moon above her.

“Very good, Piper,” the woman says. Something is starting to materialize in front of her, shifting into focus. Within seconds, there she is, tall and regal. She’s dressed in what might be a wedding gown. She has a veil, too, and a crown that looks like a collection of stars sits on her head. “I had hoped you would be the one to come and find me.”

Piper shifts the grip on her knife, moving to hold it between herself and Selene. It won’t be effective, she knows, but she feels a little better holding it there. She almost wishes she had a shield; it’s unnerving, knowing that Selene can see all of her when she can’t see anything but lace where a face should be.

“And why is that?” Piper demands. “Why did you want me to come here?”

Selene extends a white-gloved hand. Piper flinches away, bracing for some kind of impact until she realizes what’s happening. The goddess is pointing, index finger extended in the direction of the body on the ground.

“Poor Endymion is beginning to bore me,” she sighs, as if she has any right to be upset. “He and I, we’ve been together for centuries now. I’ve had to watch him change.”

“Change?” She’s stalling, asking stupid questions; Piper doesn’t care about how this boy has changed. She needs time to come up with a plan. Improvising won’t help her. If she doesn’t do this right, Selene is going to turn her attention somewhere else. She’s going to see Leo out in Virginia or Annabeth on Olympus, and it will all be over.

Selene moves past Piper, gown rippling like water. The pond has started to splash up against the beach, as if pulled by her gravity. “He’s gotten older, I’m afraid. I tried to stop it, but Zeus was hardly forgiving enough to allow him immortality.”

Her fingers trace along his jawline and down his neck; Piper feels exposed, violated just by watching. This isn’t right. He never wanted this. He just wanted to live peacefully in his meadow. It’s something that she’s familiar with, and it sets a fire burning in the pit of her stomach.

Selene turns her attention to Piper again. “But you,” she says, “you’re young.” The lace shifts where her mouth might be, as if her breath propels it forward. It’s creepy, like one of the villains from the movies Piper’s dad was in that used to give her nightmares. “And you’re very beautiful.”

Piper watches, frozen, as Selene moves forward and reaches for her. The fingers wrap themselves up in her hair, playing with the blue harpy feathers at the end of her braid. “Surely your mother wouldn’t want such beauty to go to waste, not from old age. Perhaps she would… persuade Zeus, hm? To keep you young while you slept?”

That wouldn’t be completely unlike her mother. But Zeus wouldn’t let it happen, not over this. He doesn’t care for Piper. The only time he’s ever agreed with her was when she broke up with Jason, and that was mostly because he thought his sole heir deserved better.

Even with that said, though, Piper has an idea. If Selene wants to bargain, that’s exactly what she’ll do. She can talk herself out of almost anything if she thinks about it for long enough, and Selene is absolutely no exception to that.

Piper has an idea almost instantly. It’ll work, she’s sure of it. Even so, she turns up her charm, batting her eyelashes and pitching her voice just right. “Selene, you know that won’t work.” She can feel the doubt there, the desperation. Selene is grasping at straws. She wants Piper, and she wants her forever; she’s just not sure how to make it happen.

“Of course it will,” Selene insists, although she already sounds less certain. “Your mother loves you. Surely she will fight to save your life.”

“My mother is a fickle woman,” Piper chides her. She doesn’t even have to try to sound convincing; she’s telling the truth. “What is the loss of one daughter? She has plenty more. I’m hardly her favorite.”

Silence. The pause stretches, tense and thick. Selene is processing the information, fighting to think of some way to win this. She flickers in and out of focus. It feels almost like the dreams that Gaia used to give Piper; Selene may be back, she might be growing stronger, but she isn’t fully restored yet. She can’t hold herself together all on her own like this. To Piper, she seems unstable; her edges are fuzzy and undefined.

She’s hardly got a grip on her surroundings. Selene is insubstantial, clearly, and something about the way she is speaking leads Piper to believe that the years have not been kind to her mind. Persuading her to make the selfish and clearly destructive decision should be easy.

“However,” Piper says, drawing it out like she’s lost in thought.

Selene immediately takes the bait, floating forward with a desperate gasp. “Yes? What is it?”

Piper shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know that you want to hear this. You aren’t going to like it.”

“Tell me!” Selene’s veil lifts just slightly with the ferocity of her words; underneath it, where Piper was expecting to see skin, there is nothing but black. It pours out from the fabric, little wisps of darkness that stretch out toward her like tentacles.

It’s absolutely the scariest thing that Piper has ever seen, but she takes a deep breath to steel herself and presses on. “There is one thing that Zeus would take in exchange for my youth.” It’s a struggle to keep her voice steady, but she does her best. “You have something that he wants almost as badly.”

“The torch.” Selene’s voice has changed; earlier, it was the sound of rustling leaves. Now it is wolf-like, snarling in reproach. “You are trying to trick me,” she growls.

Piper shakes her head. “Not at all,” she stammers, laying the charmspeak on so thick that she almost believes herself. “I am tired, Selene. I want to sleep here, to stay with you. Being a demigod, fighting all the time… it’s so exhausting. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

It’s hard to tell if it’s working, but the tendrils are moving toward her now, brushing up against her skin. She fights the urge to shiver. They feel like ice, like every nightmare she ever had. Piper was never really afraid of the dark as a kid, but she suddenly understands why so many people feel that way. Where the darkness touches, her skin breaks out in goose flesh.

“But you do not wish to die,” Selene urges, wanting Piper to finish the thought.

Piper shakes her head fervently. “No one wants to die, Selene,” she says. “I just want to rest for a while. And then, when all of the fighting is over, you can wake me up. We can be together.”

“Together,” Selene whispers, in something that almost sounds like awe.

Piper nods, swallowing the lump in her throat. “You and me,” she says, closing her eyes and imagining Annabeth there in front of her. “Safe, and together. Just… wake Endymion up, send him to Camp Half-Blood with the torch. Make sure he tells everyone about our deal. Zeus will do whatever you want.”

“Together,” Selene repeats.

“Can you do this for me?” It’s hard to keep her emotions in check, to sound like this is something that she wants. Piper finds herself asking the same question to herself:  Can you do this for them? Are you strong enough?

A year ago, Leo had let himself die to save everyone. At the time, Piper had thought it was the stupidest thing he had ever done. If he’d just talked to them, if he’d only given them a chance to come up with some sort of plan together, he never would have had to go through that.

But Leo had the physician’s cure. He had known that there was the possibility of survival, of making it back to camp to see his friends again. Piper has no such cure. She doesn’t have any time, either, has no way of coming up with an alternate plan. This is it. There are no other choices.

Selene brushes a hand over Piper’s cheek. She has never felt anything more revolting. “Of course.”

“Swear it on the River Styx,” Piper insists. “Please.”

Selene fades away. “If you take Endymion’s place, he will take both the torch and your message to Camp Half-Blood with my assistance before tomorrow night is through. I swear on the River Styx,” her voice echoes.

And then she’s gone, and it’s only Piper and Endymion again. Piper takes a minute to collect herself, breathing heavily and leaning against a tree for support.

This is hardly the way that she wanted to go.

Or, well, it isn’t really going, she thinks. It isn’t like she’s dying or anything. She’s just… going to sleep. The boy in front of her is still healthy enough, even if his skin is a little pale and he has spiderwebs – real, literal spiderwebs , gross – laced over his eyes and between his fingers.

He’s been here a long time. It isn’t fair to make him suffer any longer. The gods have done enough to innocent people to last for the rest of eternity, to fill every quota. This boy Endymion never asked to be meddled with; he just caught Selene’s attention one day, and she had taken him.

If Piper doesn’t take his place, it’s more than just the torch that she leaves behind. It’s this boy who has outlived his entire family, his entire world. He has suffered enough, and he has absolutely no idea that it’s even happened. No one ever bothered to try and save him.

But that isn’t the case for Piper. She has people who care about her; her friends will get her out of this. Annabeth, Leo, Jason; someone will be able to help her with this mess she’s created. She knows that it isn’t going to be forever. That should make it easier; it doesn’t.

Piper can feel the cold gaze of the moon on her back, waiting to see what she’ll do. The sun should be rising soon; she doesn’t have much time left.

She leans down, brushing the cobwebs from the boy’s skin. It’s cold too, just like Selene had been. His cheek feels like marble under her fingertips; even so, his chest rises evenly with each breath and she can hear him exhaling. He’s alive. He survived this. She can, too. She’s survived worse than sleep.

Her hand lingers for a moment over his heart, listening to the lethargic way that it beats. Then she forces herself to pull away, walks until her toes are buried in the fine white sand around the little pond, and lays down.

Piper remembers promising Leo that they would all make it back to camp. She remembers telling Annabeth that they’ve made it through worse than this.

She remembers, suddenly, Nico di Angelo. When he’d been trapped by the giants, he’d gone into a sleep of death. It was the sort of thing that he’d said only he could survive. Piper wonders if that’s what this will be like, if she’ll unconsciously feed herself grains of sand to stay alive. There are enough here to last her thousands of years, she thinks; the thought isn’t as comforting as she wants it to be.

With the kind of determination that has always gotten her into trouble, Piper closes her eyes and steels herself for whatever nightmares are going to come for her. She falls asleep.

\--

“Hey, princess. Up.”

Where there was previously nothing but blissful dark, there is now bright sunlight. Piper scrunches her eyes tightly to keep it away, pulling her comforter up to her chin. “M’sleeping,” she mutters, “go away.”

Annabeth laughs, moving to lay parallel to Piper on the bed. “Come on now, Pipes, they’ve got vegan pancakes for breakfast this morning,” she murmurs, hand resting in the dip of Piper’s waist. “We can even find some strawberries; they’re in season, you know.”

“You will not tempt me,” Piper maintains. “Let me sleep.”

Only she doesn’t want to sleep, not anymore, because Annabeth is there and she smells like old books and her golden hair is lit up by the morning sun, and Piper feels like if she closes her eyes Annabeth might disappear, vanish in thin air like some kind of mirage. There’s a sudden panic in her throat and she fights to swallow it down, chokes on it.

Annabeth is humming softly, slightly out of tune. Her fingers are tracing lines over Piper’s ribs. “Come on, Piper, stay awake,” she says.

But there isn’t enough air, Piper can’t breathe, and then Annabeth’s fingers are gone and her humming sounds far away and…

**Author's Note:**

> So. Find me on [Tumblr](http://www.mysblink.tumblr.com) if you are so inclined. If this gets a good response, I might write a second part? As it is, I feel like it's actually kind of awful and rushed and blech, so like. Yeah.
> 
> Anyway, thank you to the ever-lovely [Jaz](http://www.officialseancassidy.tumblr.com) for reminding me of the lovely tradition of writing f/f for the month of February. And also for listening to me rant about how much I love these characters, because I do that a lot.
> 
> Title is from "Semi-Automatic" by 21 Pilots because hey, sunset, goddess of the moon.... yeah. It's been a while since I had to name anything, so.


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